Christian Academy of Louisville is excited to announce the hiring of Chris Ward as the head coach of its varsity field hockey team.

Ward joined the CAL field hockey program as the sixth grade head coach in 2017 and has been a head coach at every age group from sixth grade to junior varsity, in addition to serving as a varsity assistant coach for the 2023 state championship team. He currently holds a Level 1 coaching certification through USA Field Hockey.

“We’ve had the opportunity to observe Chris as a coach at multiple levels of our field hockey program over the past several years, and he’s impressed at every stage,” athletic director Brad Morgan said. “He understands the CAL field hockey culture as well as anyone, and he’s the right person to continue that coming off a state championship season.”

Ward takes over for Stephanie Seeley, who led the Centurions to an 89-26-3 record in four years as head coach. CAL has reached the state semifinals eight of the last nine years, including two state titles and two state runner ups.

“I’m really excited and looking forward to continuing to build upon all the success CAL field hockey has had all these years, and I’m very honored to now have this position,” Ward said. “I have first hand knowledge of the whole program. I’ve been involved in every level you could be involved in at CAL, so I’m very familiar with the culture and the program and understand what we need to do to have continued success into the future.”

CAL will look to continue its extended stretch of success this year, when it returns a plethora of key contributors from last year’s state championship team.

“I think CAL field hockey always has a target on its back anyways, but obviously it puts a larger target on you when you’re the defending state champion,” Ward said. “We’re losing seniors who were large contributors over many years, but we have a great core group coming back. We absolutely can still compete for a state championship, and I fully expect that we’re going to be right there in the thick of things at the end of the season.”